Word Count: 800
Time To Read: 3 minutes
Main Points:
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Night time eating isn’t necessarily bad but calories can really pile up.
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Because we are so tired, much of our evenings are spent the same way. If you find yourself drinking wine and eating crisps every night then this is a problem.
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If you are having trouble with eating at night try the FAIL system to prevent the evening binge.
THE FAIL SYSTEM
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Filling Foods- Eating Filling foods throughout the day
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Avoidance- Avoid the unhealthy food by removing them from the house
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Inclusion- Have the unhealthy foods fit in with the overall calories for the day
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Lower Calorie Options- Have reduced calorie snacks.
Night Time Disaster
Night time eating is one of the main culprits for not losing weight
Eating a full dinner and still gorging on crisps. Craving sweets before dinner has even finished. Drinking the occasional glass (bottle) of wine.
Unfortunately these calories can really mount up.
A chocolate bar, a packet of crisps and a couple of glasses of wine adds up to 700 calories.
The worst part. You may have already eaten a full days worth of food and still have these cravings.
4 ways ways to Deal with nighttime eating.
Controlling this mindlessness is essential for long term health and weightloss.
To help, try the FAIL system.
1) Filling Foods
When on a diet, it can be very easy to completely cut down on portion sizes by eating “low fat” foods
Most of these food are tiny, unsatisfying and leave us ravenous within an hour.
This includes eating low calorie cereals, breads and spreads.
Instead of this rabbit food portion control, aim to eat as many highly filling foods with lower calories.
Simple rule of thumb
Eat as many vegetables and lower fat meat as possible.
Here’s an example of the importance of eating filling food for the diet.
Ignoring taste. Imagine eating half a bag of broccoli and two chicken breasts, compared with two slices of toast with some light butter
Both of these have the same amount of calories.
Which do you think will be more filling??
2) Avoidance
I have found this to be the most effective way for anyone to stick with a diet plan.
Just like an alcoholic avoids the pubs. Avoiding the need for willpower is extremely powerful.
It doesn’t matter if you have monk like discipline.
Night time eating is a different beast. You have years and years of sitting down in front of the telly and eating crap ingrained into you.
Exhaustion also creeps in.
All that remains are cravings and your ape like body in front of the crisps and the chocolate.
Don’t lie to yourself in the shops, buying goodies and saying you will moderate it.
Get rid of the junk altogether.
3) Inclusion
It is no big deal if you eat a mars bar and a packet of crisps occasionally.
It is no problem to include these foods in the diet so long as it fits in with the overall amount food for the day.
Including junk food in the diet can be done
It works very well if you track the food/calories you eat.
Unfortunately most people tend to either do one of two things with night time eating.
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Eat sporadically in the day without any sort of tracking, then justify binging saying they haven’t had much all today
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Eat all of the regular food yet still find themselves craving junk food at the end of the night.
If you fall into the above two, then removing junk food altogether or having lower calories options may be a better option than including the junk.
4) Lower Calorie options
If you find that you are still having cravings in the evening, then another option is to make sure the snacks are healthy or lower calorie.
Instead of stocking up on wine and cheese, replace these with lower calorie options
Instead of crisps, have popcorn
Opt for sugar free alternatives if you have a sweet tooth.
If you have savoury cravings, a helpful option is stocking up on vegetables with whatever seasoning you desire.
Vegetables are extremely filling containing lower calories per portion.
Try FAIL
The evening is one of the hardest battles you can face in a diet.
You have years of repetition against you.
You have the emotional aspect of dealing with stress against you.
But reducing the crap in the evenings can be done.
Try the FAIL system and see how you fair out.
It can all be done in your next food shop.
Filling Foods- Eat filling foods throughout the day to prevent as strong cravings
Avoidance- Avoid the unhealthy food by removing
Inclusion- Have the unhealthy foods fit in with the overall calories for the day
Lower Calorie Options- Having reduced calorie snacks.
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